HBO examines the life of famed boxing trainer Freddie Roach

Freddie Roach trains boxers to excel in the same sport that, most likely, gave him Parkinson's disease.

You can play psychological gymnastics with that, or point moralistic foam fingers.

Or you can watch the upcoming series, "On Freddie Roach," which premieres Friday night on HBO Sports.

The documentary is directed by Peter Berg, and it has no narrator. The first episode follows Roach as he trains Amir Khan's victory over Zab Judah last summer, and also into his doctor's office, and his Hollywood home, and various states of fulfillment and struggle.

"There are moments when the cameras are on him when he's falling asleep, literally," said Jim Lampley, the HBO boxing play-by-play man who is the executive producer.

Do you trust those cameras who invade NBA timeout huddles? I don't, either. Invariably the coach is saying something your sixth-grade coach also said. The part where he tells the team that the opposing center is a dog who is ready to quit is somehow never shown.

But sports truths do exist on TV, usually on HBO or Showtime, with the "Hard Knocks" and "24/7" shows.

"On Freddie Roach" is even closer to the marrow because of the quiet times, and what you hear beneath them.

There are two great facts in Roach's life and he is in charge of keeping them separated, in neutral corners. Except the fight never ends.

"They caught my good moods and my bad moods and they saw what my life is about," Roach said. "I have a mean streak sometimes. But all of us do. I'm really compulsive about some things. You see how crazy I am about cleaning up the sink."

He laughed. "So now, when you watch it, your wife is going to want you to clean up after yourself, and you'll be in trouble."

Roach is best known for training Manny Pacquiao, but he has worked with 20 world champs. He is frightfully busy.

But when he saw one unfamiliar fellow in Mickey Rourke's Outlaw Gym one day, he told him, "You look horrible."

When asked who he might be, he said, "I'm Freddie, and you look horrible."

The fighter was Berg, better-known for directing the "Friday Night Lights" series.

"All the boxers, in slightly different language, talk about his powers of observation," Berg said. "He doesn't miss a thing. And I think he's probably one of the best listeners. He detects patterns in opponents.

"I think he's in a lot more pain that he lets on. He's just so stoic. But he can fly 18 hours to the Phillippines, drive six more hours to Manny's camp, get there, put on the mitts, train, go to the hotel, have dinner He doesn't behave like a guy who has an illness at all."

In the first episode, Roach visits a doctor and has to be sedated to enter the MRI tube, because of his involuntary shaking.

Roach choked up when he saw that on tape. In the segment, he says that one doctor told him the condition wouldn't get any worse, but that doctor's mentor had told Roach that yes, it could.

At Roach's Wild Card Gym, weekend hobbyists and longshot kids and champs stand next to each other and work the bags. One of the regulars is 88 years old.

It's Roach's world. Health aside, he could no more give up training boxers than he could design evening gowns.

"The hardest thing is to tell a guy he should quit," Roach said, sitting on a bench at Wild Card.

"I've told five or six guys. They all told me to (deleted). But when somebody told me I said, 'What's he know?' I was the first to know, but you don't want to believe it. But then I fought five more times and lost four. I don't want to see guys go through that.

"I've had guys break down and cry. They put their whole life in it. I told one guy to retire and he hadn't had a pro fight. I told him he didn't have a future in it and he said, 'yeah, but you already had a career.' But now he's selling boats in Florida. He's doing good."

The night before Khan-Judah, Roach dined in an out-of-the-way Vegas restaurant, and he spoke sharply to Marie Spivey, his assistant and former girlfriend, because she wouldn't get off her cellphone.

But his helplessly boyish grin, the one that earned him the boxing nickname "Choirboy," returned when a veteran blonde singer, in the middle of performing "Goody Goody," came to the table and arranged a sing-along with Roach.

"Goody-goody for him," Roach sang, utterly delighted, when she handed him the mic.

The scene, and the show, will be called "life-affirming," as if Roach's life needed it.